The Santiago Saga

This morning we said goodbye to the Guindon household and loaded up again to set out for Dover, TN. However, we had only driven 40 minutes, when we heard a familiar pop - this time on the driver's side - and the Suburban started to pull to the left. Once again, Miguel guided it to the shoulder, this time with shade! Once again, we called a tow truck and made arrangements to be taken to a mechanic.

Once again on the side of the highway
Otra vez a un lado de la carretera

Miguel was pretty glum
Miguel estaba muy aguitado

...so I tried to get him to smile

...asi que yo trate de hacerle sonreir

That should do the trick!
Eso deberia funcionar!

When I talked to the girl at AAA, she asked me how many people would be riding in the tow truck. But when the tow truck arrived, there were already two people in the truck - which only left room for one! It turned out to be a married couple who own the truck and work together all day towing people and other AAA services. The wife told us, "We only have one seat, but that's okay, you can sit on each other's laps!" When it was time for us to climb in the truck she said, "It'll be just like when you were newlyweds!" Well, not quite, since I never sat on Miguel's lap when we were newlyweds...I didn't want to hurt the guy! It was an funny, uncomfortable 30 minutes, that's for sure! When we were within sight of our destination we had to wait at a red light. Our legs were falling asleep and muscles were hurting. After a full minute or longer Miguel said, "This is the longest traffic light of my life!" When we got out of the truck, we were both limping on one of our legs because they had fallen asleep. It was pretty comical!

And there she is, once again in the shop
Y ahi esta otra vez en un taller

The marks the suburban carved out of the pavement when they took it off the tow truck
Las marcas que dejo la Suburban en el pavimiento cuando la bajaron de la grua

Waiting for a taxi to take us "home"
Esperando que llegara el taxi para llevarnos a casa

Unlike last week, this shop had trouble finding replacement parts. They told us they couldn't find a new spindle in the whole country and there wasn't a used one in the whole state of Alabama. So, we have to wait 2 days for the parts to come in from Georgia. We were thankful that we hadn't gotten too far from Birmingham and that Uncle Ed and Aunt Ginny were generous and gracious enough to let us come back to their house. We're looking forward to resting up for a couple of days before heading to Tennessee to see my Dad's sister, Judy, and her family.

God is good...all the time!

Today we departed from Daphne, intent on our course toward Anniston, AL. Although we didn’t get off as early as we had hoped, we were all set and ready to go. We enjoyed one last visit with Abby over breakfast, cleaned up our little apartment, loaded up the Suburban and hit the road. Shortly after we had gotten on Interstate 65 to take us up to Birmingham, the Lord changed our plans.

Riding along, I took a picture of the bracelet Megan made for me. Thanks, Megan!

As we hummed merrily along, all of a sudden something popped on the front passenger tire and the whole Suburban started to pull hard to the right, then the left, then the right again. Miguel immediately reacted and put all his energy into pulling it up straight and guiding it to the side of the road. I could tell he was having a hard time getting the brakes to respond and up ahead I could see a pickup truck parked on the shoulder…directly in front of where we were headed. As Miguel was trying to control the Suburban, I was just praying that the Lord would make us stop before we ran into the pickup, and He did!

As soon as we got out, the couple in the pickup truck also got out to see what had happened to us. They had run out of gas and couldn’t get anyone to stop and help them. We, as it turned out, had a bad wheel bearing and our tire was leaning in toward the center of the car instead of being straight, like it was supposed to. Between Miguel and our friend (whose name we never learned), the two of them took apart everything behind the tire. Our new friend used to be a mechanic, so he was giving us estimates on prices and time for repairs. I was thankful for our AAA membership and immediately called for a tow truck to be sent out to us. We were also able to use the same membership to have gas brought out for our friends in the pickup

After an hour and a half on the side of the road, the tow truck showed up. Our friends in the pickup thanked us for the help and took off down the road. Then Miguel and the tow truck driver had to figure out how to get the Suburban up onto the flatbed truck with no tire on the from passenger side! After some puzzling and maneuvering, they were able to get the Suburban loaded without damaging anything more than it was already damaged. We were blessed to have a very patient and mostly inexperienced (he'd driven the tow truck for only 2 weeks) driver, who took all Miguel's suggestions into consideration and was willing to take all the time necessary to make sure the Suburban wasn't damaged any further. God is good!

A 20 mile ride brought us to Brewton, AL to Jim Rapp’s Care Care where the Suburban once again underwent work on the front end suspension and brakes!

We were impressed by the waiting room full of trophies, won by the owner, Jim, who fixed up and raced cars for many years. He told us that he stopped racing after he won over 80 trophies. As he said, "Enough was enough!"

Meanwhile, we ordered a pizza to be delivered to our country car shop waiting room, since there was nothing within walking distance for us to get lunch. We met a gentleman at the shop who lived many years in San Diego. In fact, he met his wife on the same street where Jayden and his parents live, and divorced his wife on the same street 22 years later. As we were eating our pizza, the owner of the shop walked through the waiting area and turned the TV on for us. He gave us control of the remote, so we watched Tom and Jerry (one of Miguel’s favorites) as we ate a very late lunch. Life is good!

Jim Raap's closed at 5:00, so the mechanic was working hard to finish the Suburban by that time. He was putting things back together at 5 'til 5:00 when he discovered that the caliper screws were bent. Mr. Jim had to run to the parts store, where he just managed to catch the owner before he left for home, buy the screws and get back to the shop for the mechanic to finish putting us together. 30 minutes later, we were ready to go!

We praise God and give Him all the glory for protecting us at the moment the bearing broke. We were on a straightaway, in the right lane, with plenty of shoulder to pull over. Miguel was able to control the Suburban so it didn’t roll, the Lord stopped us before we could run into the pickup and we didn’t have anyone close behind us who could have run into us. AAA paid for the tow truck and it wasn't raining like it did the day before! Our Father cares for us well!

Before we drove all the way to Anniston, Miguel wanted to make sure that there was no grease leaking on the driver's side wheel, which could cause the same problem to happen again. We stopped at a gas station several miles up the road and, sure enough, the grease had started to leak out on the driver's side. It took an hour - and yet another picture of Miguel's head in the wheel well - to re-grease the bearings and get the tire back on before we could continue up the road.

Unfortunately, we no longer had any sealant and couldn't find any at the gas stations we checked, so there was no way to guarantee the grease wouldn't leak out again. We stopped every 30 miles for the rest of the trip for Miguel to check and make sure we weren't losing too much grease. While the grease leaked a little, we were able to arrive with no further problems, gracias a Dios! We arrived at the Sarros house around 12:00, thankful for a shower and a bed!